Maintaining ACLS certification after residency?

[peppy]

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I would expect that most outpatient psychiatrists don't continue to renew ACLS after residency. How common is it for inpatient or CL psychiatry attendings to continue renewing ACLS after graduating residency? Do employers expect this?

 

[psychattending]

Exceedingly rare, even for most inpatient internal medicine attendings.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

We just all recertified en masse for BLS. But we decided as a group to leave the ACLS to the professionals.

 

[LoudBark]

I would expect that most outpatient psychiatrists don't continue to renew ACLS after residency. How common is it for inpatient or CL psychiatry attendings to continue renewing ACLS after graduating residency? Do employers expect this?

Are you kidding? Are you really going to be running codes once you graduate and become and attending?😱

Hospitals in the community have code teams which typically consist of an ER doc if it is a community hospital.

 

[peppy]

Are you kidding? Are you really going to be running codes once you graduate and become and attending?😱

I don't go running to the code pages anymore and it's not something I miss, but if you are an inpatient or CL doc, it's not hard to imagine that you might sometimes be the first doc on the scene of a code.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I don't go running to the code pages anymore and it's not something I miss, but if you are an inpatient or CL doc, it's not hard to imagine that you might sometimes be the first doc on the scene of a code.

Which is BLS territory anyway, until the code team arrives.

 

[splik]

we were never ACLS or BLS certified. is this unusual? I thought it was a bit weird having the code pager on medicine without having done ACLS! but am usually the last to know when a code blue is called on one of my psych patients.

 

[Mapplicant]

we were never ACLS or BLS certified. is this unusual? I thought it was a bit weird having the code pager on medicine without having done ACLS! but am usually the last to know when a code blue is called on one of my psych patients.

Hmm, I thought everyone would be at least BLS certified. I just finished the first day of orientation (aside from some hospital specific stuff that we did earlier in the month) and all the new residents got BLS certified. A few need ACLS too IIRC but for psych they just need BLS.

A colleague I was speaking with talked about taking a ACLS class a couple of years ago with a critical care attending. 😀

 

[whopper]

You can be ACLS certified all you want. Most institutions will pay for your training.

But unless you actually do codes often, expect to forget everything you spent your time studying within about a few weeks. The training itself really isn't enough for me to expect someone to be good at it. You only get good at it by seeing it a lot, and as a psychiatry attending you won't....or at least you hopefully shouldn't. Any institution expecting their psychiatry attendings to run codes often, well that says something and it ain't good.

 

[peppy]

Not having to do ACLS for residency does sound unusual to me. Kind of surprised that there are places that don't require it for at least internship.

The last time I took an ACLS class, it was with a bunch of CRNAs. The instructor mentioned to me at the end of the day that I was one of the best in the class that day even though he knew that I was from psych. I am not sure if that reflects well on me or poorly on those CRNAs. 🙂

 

[whopper]

ACLS certication in residency will help you out on the USMLE. Just that as I said, if you're running the code, you likely won't know WTF to do in that high stress situation. You only get good by doing it a lot. Psych residents won't do this much if at all except during their IM rotation (if you have an IM rotation).

 

[notdeadyet]

I can see the value of ACLS as an intern while rotating on medicine and potentially inpatient neurology. Other than that, and after internship, I don't see the point. If a patient codes, you'll be calling a code and the code blue team will arrive.

 

[michaelrack]

codes are pretty rare in psych hospitals. And even if the psychiatrist knew ACLS, it would be very difficult to run a code with psych nurses (assuming that a code kit exists). I moonlight at a psych hospital about .3 miles away from the general hospital it is associated with. I think the protocol in code/near-code situation is to send the patient to the general hospital ER. There is a reason why psych hospitals want patients "medically cleared" prior to acceptance. Psych hospitals aren't equipped to handle codes.

A lot of times in psych hospitals (ie at midnight, there is not a doctor present).

The psych hospitals in my area tend to be "free-standing" (even if they are technically associated with a general hospital, they are not adjacent to the general hospital or physically part of it).